Blades of Gory
by mosylu
Summary: For some reason, Caitlin wants him to learn how to ice skate. Cisco's pretty sure this won't end well, but he has a hard time telling her no. (Plus, that guy at the pro shop? HOOOOOOOOOOOOT.)


One of the things about being a prodigy, at anything, was that you had an incredibly low threshold of frustration for everything else. Cisco could go days working on a stubborn project, subsisting on energy drinks and various flavors of sugar, and his interest and delight would never flag, because he knew he'd crack it in the end.

But trying new things that weren't sci/tech related?

Unless he got it nailed basically right away, Cisco tended to give up in disgust and sulk on the sidelines. He gave up even faster if it was anything that required athletic prowess. And by that he meant basic coordination.

It was a flaw, he was aware. He and Caitlin had talked about this. At length.

So he honestly couldn't figure out why she wanted him to learn how to ice skate.

"Seriously," he complained as she tooled her little blue car along Forester like they'd just robbed a bank and the cops were on their tail. "Why? How does this make sense? Ice skating is, like, the whitest thing ever." He held out his arm. "Check this out. I'm way too brown for this. You ever see a Mexican hockey player?"

"Mexico has a - _keep up with traffic or get off the road, asshole_ \- national team."

"Yeah, but how good are they?"

She blared her horn at a pedestrian who was a little too slow to get out of the crosswalk. "They came in second in the Pan American Ice Hockey Tournament this year."

"Okay, I'll rephrase. How many Chicano players are there in the NHL?"

"Scott Gomez and Raffi Torres - _same to you, dicksmack_ \- have both been on Stanley Cup winning teams. "

He gave her a betrayed look. "You researched this."

"I may have anticipated some of your arguments. Honestly! You'll like this!"

"Will not," he muttered.

Twenty minutes and one speeding ticket later - there was a reason he usually drove them when they weren't in hot meta-human pursuit - they'd arrived at the Central City Ice Rink.

Caitlin bounced happily as she retrieved her bag from the trunk. She, of course, had been skating since about the time she could stand up. Cisco had seen the ridiculously adorable pictures of tiny Caitlin, in sparkly skating dresses, posing with medals and trophies. She'd stopped competing around the age of ten when she'd decided it was cutting into school too much, but she'd still skated for fun until she got into med school.

She'd just started skating again, going to the rink once or twice a week. Cisco was pretty happy about that, because hey, it was something she enjoyed and their lives had been weird and fraught and traumatic for so long that she should have something she enjoyed.

But seriously, he could be happy from a distance, right? Did he have to come along with her?

"Am I supposed to wear your old skates?" he groused, trailing after her.

"Don't be silly," she said over her shoulder. "You can rent some in the pro shop."

The pro shop cheered Cisco up no end.

Or to be more accurate, the _pro_ cheered him up no end.

He was - wow.

His name was Johnny, which Cisco knew because it was stitched onto his staff polo shirt, the six letters pulled taut over Captain-America-level pecs. Also, point of interest, he had a butt like two peaches in a bag.

Cisco was honestly having a hard time keeping his chin dry.

"Hey," Johnny said. "How are those skates fitting? Right size?"

"I dunno," Cisco said innocently. His feet, strapped into the skates, felt like lead weights at the end of his legs. "I don't think I've got the laces quite right. They feel a little loose."

"Oh, I can check that for you."

And now he had Captain Peach-butt kneeling at his feet, one hand on his ankle, one cupped around his calf, both of them warm and gentle even through layers of fabric. Yassssssss. Mental fist pump.

He hadn't been on a date since Lisa Snart, and holy shit, did that ever not count. If shamelessly ogling a gorgeous man whose abs, incidentally, looked like you could bounce a quarter off them, was how he got his increasingly rare thrills … Well, as long as he stayed behind the bad-touch line, he was okay.

Also, staring down at the top of Johnny's head from a distance of about a foot, Cisco could tell that his black hair wasn't naturally wavy, but gelled in that particular way that meant a guy was trying to tame his curly hair. Oh my god. A head full of glossy black curls, maybe wet from the shower -

And when he looked up, his eyes were so bright green they looked like kryptonite. Definitely Cisco could feel his super strength leaving him.

"Good?"

"Uh huh," Cisco said dreamily and then thought _oh, he means the skates_. "Uh yeah. Great." He wiggled his foot and cast around for something that would keep Johnny talking to him for a couple of minutes more. "So, these plastic, um, skate parts. Is that a new technology?"

Johnny gave him a funny look. "The what?"

He held up his foot. "Down there. At the bottom." They were blue. He'd never seen blue ice skate … parts before.

"Those are the blade guards." He reached down and popped a blue plastic piece off to reveal gleaming silver blades that, no joke, looked like they'd been designed to decapitate somebody. "They go on over the actual blades to keep them sharp while you're not on the ice." He demonstrated, snapping it back on.

"Ohhhhhh," Cisco said, hoping that Johnny had been suddenly struck blind and couldn't see all the blood rushing directly to his face. "Got it. Ha. Ha ha. Told you I'd never skated before."

Johnny laughed, and somewhere in the world, a fuzzy bunny was born. "Actually, a lot of first timers don't know that. I just couldn't, um, figure out what you meant at first because - "

"Hi," Caitlin said from behind him. "Can you tell me if Jason is working today?"

Johnny looked up, blinking, and while Cisco loved Caitlin to the end of time, he was definitely thinking murder thoughts in her direction right now.

"No, we switched shifts. Would you like to leave a message for him?"

"Oh! No. That's okay. Hey." Caitlin touched his shoulder. "You ready to get out there?"

"Mhm," Cisco said. "Yep. Let's hit that ol' … ice."

Johnny stood up, fast. "Well, have fun! I just sharpened those blades so they should be silky smooth for you."

"Thaaaaaanks," Cisco said. "Can't wait."

He clumped after her, wobbling in his skates. "Hey," he said, grabbing her hand.

"What?"

"I don't mind acting as your wingman, but how about next time you tell me that's what we're doing instead of making something up about teaching me to skate?"

She blinked. "M-my wingman?"

"Yeah, I mean, if Jason is as hot as Johnny, then I don't blame you. Awesome. Go you. Get your flirt on. But you could have told me."

"I wasn't - that's not what this was about." But her eyes darted away, avoiding his. "You need to take the blade guards off before you get on the ice."

"I know that," he said, sitting down to wrestle them off, and nicking his thumb in the process. Holy crap, those things were sharp. "Do I look like the kind of person who doesn't know what blade guards are for? Pffff."

She stepped onto the ice like she was stepping into a bathtub. "Come on! You're going to have sooo much fun."

Spoiler: Cisco did not have so much fun.

He landed on his butt three times in the first five minutes, and the only reason he didn't do it more was because he figured out what the wall was for. Namely, to _hold the fuck onto_.

Amazing how many people on this rink hadn't discovered that yet.

These nutjobs were all out on the open ice balanced on two little skinny pieces of metal. There was an outer ring of somewhat sensible people, who skated along cautiously, holding onto each other for support. Then there was a middle ring of speed demons, who zipped along clearly intent on killing themselves or others. They were pretty much the Caitlin-driving of this ice rink.

Then in the middle were the people doing the really fancy shit, the spins and figures and every so often a jump, like they were showing off just how much they'd lost their minds.

Caitlin left the innermost ring, cut across the other two without seeming to notice her own peril, and stopped on a dime, two feet in front of him. "Ciiiiiiiiiiiiscooooooooooo. You can't skate and hang onto the wall. It doesn't work like that."

"Watch me," he said.

"Look," she said, holding her hands out. "Grab on. I won't let you fall."

"I outweigh you by about thirty pounds. Physics is not on your side."

"Come onnnnnnn."

He let go of the wall with one hand and took one of hers.

"Now the other," she said.

He glared.

"Look, you either trust me or you don't." She wiggled her fingers.

He peeled his fingers off the wall, one by one, and flailed for a moment, anchorless, rudderless, before her hand wrapped around his.

She started skating - _backwards_ , like, what witchcraft was this - hauling him along. He locked his knees, locked his elbows, and had to admit that it was a little more fun, sailing over the ice as opposed to creeping along it.

"Okay, you have to move your feet," she panted. "I can't drag you around like a dog sled this whole time."

"Works for me."

She coached him through pushing off with the sides of his foot. From a physics standpoint, it was actually kind of neat, especially when she explained that the friction of the blades melted the ice just long enough for them to basically hydroplane along. But the strange movements made his ankles hurt and his thighs ache.

"You'll get used to it. Don't let your ankles bend like that."

"I can't help it, that's what they evolved to do!"

"You're going to strain the ligaments. Straighten them up." After a few more feet, she announced, "Okay, I think you're ready to do this on your own."

"No, I'm not!"

She let go of one hand, and he clutched the other for dear life.

"You're fine! You're doing great! Okay, I'm letting go."

"Don't you - " He went down. "Ow," he said piteously.

"Get back up," she said, helping him to his feet. "Come on. Everybody falls when they're learning to skate. The trick is getting right back up."

"Why does anyone do it then?" he asked, wondering if there was a classy way to rub his sore ass.

"Because! Fun!"

He was hot and sweaty under his coat, so he peeled it off and tied it around his waist, leaving him in just his Republicans for Voldemort t-shirt. The hell with how he looked. It might work as padding.

He fell down again.

Nope, sure didn't.

Sitting on the ice, he peered up at her. "Okay, it's been like four hours, right? Can we be done now?"

"It's been twenty minutes," she said. "Come on. You were doing okay there for a minute."

He allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. "I want to register my protest at this unwise course of action."

"So noted, so shut up." She started skating backwards again, forcing him to start skating just to keep up with her. They made their slow way around the rink once, then halfway around again.

"I'm letting go now."

"I'll hurt you."

"Only if you can catch me."

Then he was drifting along on his own, Caitlin hovering just out of arm's reach.

"See? See! This is fun, right?"

He managed a smile because she was so excited, but said, "I'll go with bearable."

He pushed off with his foot the way she'd taught him and achieved a speed of about a mile an hour. That was good. That was a good speed.

Not that he'd admit it to her, but he could kinda see how people might enjoy this if they were any good at it. She was grinning broadly, all self-satisfied, thinking she had a skating buddy now. As far as he could tell, she didn't need a skating buddy, so he still didn't know what this had all been -

Someone zipped past him, their shout of "Watch it!" Dopplering off down the rink. Cisco looked around and felt his stomach collapse. He'd drifted into the edge of the speedway.

He tried to turn toward the wall, and out of the corner of his eye saw a scrawny kid in a hockey jersey barreling right toward him. Cisco wasn't the heftiest dude, but he was still pretty sure that he'd break this matchstick child in half if they collided. He scrambled to get out of the way.

The kid, of course, zipped around him without breaking stride, but Cisco's balance was seriously compromised anyway. His ankle collapsed, his knee went the other way, and the last thing he felt was his head whacking the ice.

* * *

He swam back to consciousness slowly, blinking his eyes open, trying to focus. Awww, he'd died and gone to heaven.

Nope, that was Johnny, hovering over him, looking concerned. "Hey, hi, are you back? You were out for a second there. No, don't try to sit up. Can you tell me your name? Do you know who the president is?"

"Huh?"

"Aw, man." Johnny looked over at someone. "Um, ma'am, I'm awfully sorry but he might have a concussion. He seems confused."

Caitlin stuck her face into his field of vision. "Cisco, all the Doctors, in order."

"Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker, Davison, Baker, McCoy, McGann, Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, and Capaldi," Cisco said automatically. "And John Hurt as the War Doctor."

"He's not confused," she said. "Okay, sit up."

Cisco might have leaned on Johnny a little harder than he needed to, following orders.

She'd gotten his keys from somewhere and flicked the penlight into his eyes, left, right, left, right. "Pupils are responding. How's your head?"

"Ouch," he said.

"I imagine so. Are you nauseous? Do you remember what happened? Any ringing in your ears? Are you dizzy?"

"I wasn't until you started firing questions at me."

"I think you'll be okay." She put out her hand, and automatically, he put his into it. She yanked. "Up!"

"Yeow!" He sat down on the ice again, hard.

"Uhoh, what?"

"My ankle. Shit. Wow."

"Uhoh," Caitlin said again. To Johnny, still hovering, she said, "Can you help me get him off the ice?"

"Yeah! Yeah yeah."

Cisco honestly should have enjoyed that process more, but wow. Wowwwwwww. His ankle really hurt.

"I'll call 911!" Johnny offered.

"No, I don't think that's necessary. We just need some ice, thanks."

"Right, right, I can do that." Johnny bounded away like a concerned gazelle.

"Wasn't ice the problem?" Cisco asked, plopping onto the bench. His much-abused ass protested weakly.

"A cold pack will help with the swelling. But first, let's get this skate off and see what it looks like."

He bit his lip against unmanly whimpers of pain as Caitlin undid the laces on his skate. "Mmm," she said, prodding.

Screw machismo. Cisco went ahead and whimpered.

"Mmm." She flexed his foot. "How's that feel?"

"Hurts like a mother."

"Mmmm."

"Stop!"

"What?"

"Everytime you go 'mmmm,' you do something that hurts, so, stop."

She gave him a withering look. "I don't think it's broken. I'll get you back to Star Labs and we'll get X-rays just to be sure, but I think it's just sprained."

* * *

She made Cisco get in the back, stretching his leg along the seat to keep it elevated. He had to sit with his back against the door. He still put on his seatbelt, though. He wasn't crazy enough to let Caitlin Snow drive him and not wear a seatbelt. One debilitating injury for the day was fine, thanks.

From the front, she said, "I'm really - I'm so, so sorry."

"I know you are." He shifted his foot carefully, testing to make sure the ice pack strapped to his ankle was holding. What he'd do if it fell off, he didn't know.

"And I have a confession to make. This really wasn't about teaching you to ice skate. I mean. Not totally."

"I knew it!" he yelped. "Were you filming me? Is this going viral as we speak?"

"No … look, it didn't work, so don't worry about it."

"Now I have to hear. You know that."

"Well, I just really really wanted you to meet Jason."

"Who the hell is Jason?"

"You remember? Jason?"

"I've never met the dude, so no, I can't say that I remember."

"I asked in the pro shop about him? Jason?"

"Just because you've said his name three times doesn't mean I'm gonna magically figure out why you wanted me to - oh, _Caitlin_."

"I thought it would be nice," she said. "If you two hit it off. He's very cute. He wears these little square glasses and has a shaved head and a very nicely-done sleeve tattoo. Really quite skilled work. I thought he was your type."

"Is he even gay?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Because your gaydar is kinda pitiful. I mean, sometimes a hipster is just a hipster."

"Well, he was talking about breaking up with his boyfriend, so I felt pretty secure that he liked boys."

"A _rebound_?"

"Three months ago! And it's not like I set you two up on a blind date."

"This time," he said balefully. He still remembered that date with Bill. Who had turned out to be as straight as a fireplace poker.

Also a Republican.

Like, _seriously_ , Caitlin.

"No, I learned my lesson, I did. This was not a setup. I know how you hate those. I just wanted you to meet him and see if there was a spark. But he wasn't even there so I completely failed." She pouted. "But then I really did want to teach you to ice skate because I thought you'd love it and then start coming regularly and then you'd meet Jason eventually anyway."

"Caitlin."

"Yes."

"I do not love it."

"Well, not with that attitude, you don't. Look, the next time you try it - "

"Will be when hell freezes over, because in that case I'll need the skill."

"Well, it won't be for awhile, definitely, with that ankle. If it is sprained, you'll need to be off it for a week at least."

"Even after I'm better. Look, I'll come along with you anytime you want. I'll hang in the snack bar and drink a hot chocolate bigger than my face. They have wifi, don't they? But I won't skate again."

She opened her mouth.

"Hey, look in the mirror, okay?"

She did.

"Is this my maybe-I-can-be-talked-into-it face?"

"No."

"What is it?"

"It's your no face."

He settled back against the door, reaching up for the oh shit handle as she screeched around a corner. "You got it."

* * *

The X-rays came back clear, so she wrapped it tightly and found crutches in a storeroom, then disappeared. Barry had used them last, for about ten minutes, so Cisco had to adjust the height. He was grumbling over that when Barry whooshed in and commenced yelping in concern.

"What were you doing?" Barry wanted to know when Cisco had explained that it was just sprained, not broken.

"Ice skating."

"Why?"

"Because she dragged me into it. Apparently there was a guy she wanted me to meet."

"Well? Was he cute?"

"I didn't meet him. Day off."

"Awwww. You gonna go back?"

"Not on the ice, I'm not."

Barry raised his brows.

Cisco grinned. "There might have been another guy in the pro shop."

"Suh-weet! Did you get his number?"

"Pff. He was way out of my league."

"Was not," Barry said promptly, loyally, and inaccurately.

"Please, you didn't see him. I'm T-ball and he's World Series. Nope, he's strictly eye candy." But man, Cisco loved candy.

"I wouldn't be so suuuuure of thaaaaaat," Caitlin caroled, waltzing back in.

Uh-oh. "What'd you do?"

"I was thinking about a few things and I realized that he was really awfully attentive to you when you were renting your skates."

"He was being nice. They're paid to do that."

She propped her hands on her hips. "I've never gotten in a twenty-minute conversation with any of the pro shop guys about the most unexpected badass at Hogwarts."

Cisco blushed. "Well, that's because you've still never read them."

"And when we were out on the ice, he sure seemed to be looking our way a lot."

"He was watching me topple over repeatedly. Probably laughing his ass off."

"He was looking very concerned. And very interested every time you shook your hair out. And when you took your coat off, I thought he was going to fall right off his stool."

Automatically, Cisco ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah?"

"And! The minute he saw you fall that last time, he came rushing over. Probably passed about eight other staff members on the way."

Barry crossed his arms. "Sure doesn't sound like _he_ thinks he's out of your league."

"Sure doesn't," Caitlin said, and she and Barry nodded at each other.

Cisco eyed them and said, "Okay, but what did you _do._ "

"Well, I called the rink, and asked for Johnny. You know he thought _we_ were dating? I explained, okay, that we're just best friends, and we have never, ever thought of each other in that way at all - "

Whoa now. That was a pretty sweeping generalization if you asked him.

"And anyway, long story short … " Like a genie, she produced a little slip of paper.

Cisco took it, and his mouth fell open. There on the paper, in Caitlin's chicken scratch handwriting, were seven digits and the name _Johnny Rubio_. "No way."

"Way. And - " She shook her finger at him. "That's not a pity number either, so you get that out of your head. He was so excited he could barely spell his own name."

Cisco was still gaping at the paper. Seriously?

Captain Peach-butt was so excited by the idea that he, Cisco, was single and interested that he'd given Caitlin his number?

His first instinct was to think it was a fake, or that Caitlin was exaggerating Johnny's enthusiasm, or that -

You know what? Screw it. His ankle hurt, he was bruised in all kinds of places, and he'd just given up a whole afternoon for his best friend, that otherwise might have been devoted to Dragon Age or souping up the treadmill or something infinitely more fun than freezing and getting injured.

Even if she had exaggerated, he deserved to have something nice right now, and as long as it was a real number, a conversation and possible date with Captain Johnny Peach-butt Rubio was about the nicest thing he could think of.

"So? Are you going to call him in five minutes, or in ten minutes?" She beamed at him, all hopeful that she'd Made Things Better.

He flicked the paper against his fingertips, studying her. "Mmmm. Neither."

Her face fell.

"I'm calling him now. Out. Out, out, out." He shooed her and Barry away.

* * *

Cisco crutched into the cortex. "Anybody wanna guess who has fourteen socket wrenches and a coffee date tomorrow?"

Caitlin squealed and hugged him, and Barry held up his hand for a high-five.

"Seeeeeee," Caitlin said. "Didn't I tell you that you'd have fun?"

He finished entering Johnny's name into his phone. "Hmf. I'll tell you when I'm off the crutches."

FINIS


End file.
